'Jaimie' - by Laetitia Gangotena - NYU Tisch 2nd Yr Works in Progress

'Stepford Wives in the Tropics' was what I was tempted to name this film whenever the two immaculately preened ladies appear. Filmed probably in Portsdown Road and set in a 20s kind of era, the film provides a bit of an escape from the other modern time films with gritty urban stories. Defying the laws of tropical humdity, looking sweatless under thick make-up, 2 mothers go about their afternoon tea, while watching their children dally around their play things. The scene appears like a page from painting, coloured in a yellowish-warm overtone. But it is not long before the point of conflict begins to surface - an imaginary friend.

Of the 2 children playing, one of them, the little girl, keeps giving her mother, excited accounts of her conversations with 'Jaimie'. Shaken by her daughter's worrying behaviour, she decides to follow her to the root of her supposed 'fantasy' - the bushes flanking one side of the road. Of course, we are not going to see anything 4 minutes into the film. But the little girl just keeps going back. Perhaps it is a need to be in control of the immediate around you that I unknowingly tried to fit the film into a genre as I watched on. Is it horror? If it is, then I must be in for a nasty surprise because everything looks as pretty as the ladies in the pre-war segment of 'Atonement'. Is it a psycological-thriller? Perhaps, could be interesting as one. Or is there some kind of a comic twist/ joke at the end? Would be potentially funy because the mother looks unflinchingly serious.... like if there was anyone who would hurt her daughter, her manicured nails could scratch the culprit to death.

It turns out in the end that 'Jaimie' is actually a real living person who looks like a either a driver or a porter. It still does not answer a question though - why is he living in the bushes?